minimalist

It’s that time of year where we declutter old items that no longer fit our style or lifestyle; and take control of our closet space as we transition from winter to spring. Decluttering your closet can be a huge undertaking, especially if you haven’t gone through your wardrobe in over a year or longer. Regardless if it’s your first time decluttering or your tenth time decluttering, I’m here to share 8 tips to help you master your closet. Keep reading if you’re looking to add a little bliss to your space as we move into spring.

1| Make A Plan

Don’t just go into your closet and start throwing things out and putting clothes in a donation bin. Sit down and set aside five minutes to plan out when and how long you’ll need to go through your closet and clothes altogether. Will it take a day or a few hours? Scheduled adequate time to go through your clothes so you don’t run out of time or feel rushed to get it done in an hour.

2| Take It All Out

Yes, take it all out and put it on your bed or floor. Literally everything from tops to seasonal items to shoes. You will be surprised with how much you truly have in your closet. This will help so much because you can see what the damage it and see how much you can donate, sell, toss, etc.

3| Try It All On

Does it fit? Does it look flattering on you? Does it fit your style? It is damaged at all? Is it versatile? Do you feel good when you wear that item? Ask yourself all these questions (and more) when you’re trying on different pieces in your closet. Don’t keep something unless your truly love it and it fits your personal style. If it doesn’t fit/if it’s damaged or you simply don’t love it—out it goes. Read 10 things to remove from your closet right now for help!

4| Create A “6-Month Box”

If you’re not too sure about some items, put them away in a box and store them in your basement, spare closet, or attic for six months. If you don’t find yourself looking for any of those items over the six months, or even thinking about them—you should definitely donate or sell those items once the period is up. it’s a sure way of knowing you didn’t love or need those pieces in your life.

5| Don’t Be Sentimental

You still have your bridesmaid dress from your friend’s wedding from five years ago. It doesn’t fit and you know you will never wear it again. You have scarves from Europe that are damaged and you can’t even wear anymore, yet they’re taking up space in your closet. Why keep those things if you want wear them? Try to remove the sentimental memories from those pieces and stay practical.

6| Be Honest With Yourself

No pair of shoes are worthy of keeping if you can’t wear them for 30 minutes without screaming in pain. Get rid of things that don’t make sense to keep. Why keep a pair of jeans from high school that you probably won’t fit into when you can appreciate the jeans you have now that also fit your body? Don’t hold onto things you don’t need or can’t wear.

7| Organization is Key

Find an organization system that works well for you. If you love to organize your closet by color and sleeve length, perfect! If you prefer to organize the Kon Marie way, that’s great, too! It’s all about what works best for you and what you love. Everyone will have a different preference and that’s okay! Take time to see what is visually appealing to you and what will help you keep your closet organized.

8| Maintain Consistently

Your closet will be easy to maintain if you find an organization system you love (see #7). Also make sure you set aside time every season to review your closet again and see what you can remove, donate, sell, etc. After your initial declutter, it will be much easier to see what you love and don’t love in terms of fashion, style, etc. As long as you dedicate 30 minutes to go through your closet, you will be able to maintain your hard work.

Are you ready to tackle your own closet? When is the last time you decluttered? What other tips do you have for mastering your closet? Make sure to share in the comments below!

There’s no doubt that minimalism has been a huge topic in 2016, and 2017 seems to be another year of the minimalism trend. Hopefully, this doesn’t remain a “trend,” but more of a conscious way of living for others. For me, since I’ve adopted more minimalist concepts into my life, I’ve noticed benefits that outweigh unnecessary shopping trips, etc. Make sure to leave a comment if you want to know my secrets on how I stopped unnecessary shopping!

Today I’m sharing five benefits of minimalism. Granted, there are many more than five, but these benefits are what I call, “undeniable benefits.” No matter how much you incorporate minimalism into your life, you are guaranteed to feel these benefits!

1| More Time

Let me break it down for you. The less you own in your home, the less you have to clean. The less you have to clean, the more time you have. See how that works? It’s not complicated! Instead of dusting off five extra pieces of furniture that you don’t use or love, you could sell those items, free up more space, and free up your time! Plus if you’re selling your items that you don’t love, you can make a little money through the process.

2| I Appreciate What I Own (Even More)

Before I decided to take on this lifestyle, I had so many things that I didn’t love in my life (mostly clothing). Because of this, I didn’t appreciate the possessions I owned. Now that I decluttered my home, and drastically downsized my closet, I have a deeper appreciation for all the items in my own. Everything I own, I love. That has helped me so much in this journey.

3| More Money

With pursuing minimalism means that you become a more conscious shopper. I haven’t purchased anything that’s non-essential for the last few months, and that has been a wonderful feeling for my wallet. You won’t believe how much money you save by cutting back on what you own because then you’re more aware of your shopping habits. This means more money for travel, or saving of a different purchase!

4| Your Home Is Precious

Be a ruthless editor of what you bring into your home. The less you own the less than owns you. When you decide to take on this lifestyle, your home becomes a personal sanctuary. It becomes your peaceful place. It is a place that you find the most joy because there’s no clutter or excess items to distract you. It is only filled with items you love. That is how every home should feel, but that isn’t always the case until you decide to pursue minimalism,

5| Strong Focus

Without clutter and items distracting you, you have more time and energy to focus on what you truly want to accomplish with your life. You have more clarity in your life to ask yourself, “What do I want to achieve?” “What brings me the most bliss?” With less stuff, you have more space in your mind for achieving all your #GirlBoss Goals! Minimalism helps your clarity and helps you remove any mental clutter in your mind that could be affecting you from accomplishing what you truly wish to do.

What are other benefits of minimalism have you noticed in your lifestyle? What benefits have I missed? Make sure to leave a comment below!

It’s crazy to think that this month has flown by so quickly. It seems like yesterday that Erin reached out to me to see if i was interested in collaborating with her on this challenge. After going through this month with focusing on self care, relaxation and more—I’ve learned so much from this process and experience. I want to thank Erin from A Welder’s Wife for joining me with these challenges and experience altogether. It has been wonderful to work with her and see how she has done each week during the challenges!

If it’s your first post catching up on the Mental Cleanse Challenge visit the posts below to catch up on the weekly challenges and posts below to see how Erin and I did each week!

Now keep reading below to see how I did last week on the positivity challenges:

Feb. 20: No complaint day.

I was a little nervous about this challenge because if I’m stressing out over a workout…I will complain. But, I’m happy to say that I made it through Insanity without a single complaint! A huge win for me personally, haha!

Feb 21: Write down 3 great things that happened today.

1. I had a productive day at work. 2. I worked hard on the blog after work. 3. I meal prepped for the entire week.

My positive attribute was focusing on my self-motivation and drive to keep going. The part I struggled with was only focusing on this one thought when there were other thoughts in my head.

Feb 23: Compliment a stranger.

This is never a difficult task since I’m around people most of the time. It is always nice to see someone light up after you give them a genuine compliment.

Feb 24: Write a letter to yourself explaining why you are unique.

I thought I was going to have a difficult time with this one, but instead of writing a letter, I decided to do it as a list, which seemed less daunting and overwhelming for someone who feels uncomfortable talking about themselves.

Feb 25: Ask your friends to describe you in 3 words, write them down, and repeat it to yourself throughout the day.

I decided to ask my co-workers it was the best decision of my life. They said: confident, outgoing and crazy (in a good way, haha). It makes me happy to see how they perceive me is in a positive way. It definitely made my day to think about this throughout the rest of the day.

Feb 26: Write out your challenge wins and treat yourself!

I’m so happy to say that I was able to complete all the challenges throughout this month. This challenge and teaming with up Erin taught me so much about practicing self care and focusing on time for myself, which was so important. I was most surprised about the diet and exercise challenges like going vegan and trying a new workout!

Overall, I’m sad to see that that challenge is over with, but I love knowing it’s something I can plan for another month down the road when I’m in need of some self care and relaxation. If you followed along with these challenges:

What was your favorite/least favorite week?

My favorite week was the self care week because it had mix of everything from walking to pampering sessions and everything in between. My least favorite week was probably the diet and exercise because it was a little more challenging even though it was worth it!

What challenges were you most surprised that you were able to accomplish?

No complaint day during the positivity week and trying a new workout during the diet and exercise week. Both were two that I was worried about, but was happy and proud for accomplishing them.

What challenges were your favorite or most difficult to complete?

I loved all the positivity challenges even though they were also the most difficult challenges to complete for me personally. When I was able to cross the daily challenge off my list for each day, it was so satisfying.

Is this something you’d like to try again down the road?

YES! I definitely want to plan this for summertime when I’ll need another pick-me-up-month and need to focus on self care, relaxation and refreshing my mind altogether.

Want a review of all the challenges?

I hope you enjoyed following along on these challenges throughout the month of February with Erin and I. It was so fun and refreshing to have a month filled with challenges that focused on self care, relaxation and everything in between to focus on mental health. Make sure to leave comments below asking the reflection questions and any other comments you have from participating in the challenges!

Another week has already come and gone! I feel that these challenges are coming and going so quickly and that February is flying by. It doesn’t help that this month has been very busy at work, which makes the days seem very short.

If this is your first post catching up on my 30-Day Mental Cleanse Challenge with Erin, stop and go back to the beginning. Read the first post in this challenge series about the collaboration for creating self-care challenges and a review of my first week of the Mental Cleanse Challenge!

Are you caught up to speed? Good, now we can move on to reviewing last week’s challenges and where I struggled!

Feb. 6: Try a new workout you’ve never done before.

I knew this would be challenging for me because I’ve done a lot of different workouts. But I decided to go out of my comfort zone and not cheat, so I tried a cardio ab workout I found online.

Feb. 7: Keep all three meals “phone free.” No social media scrolling!

This isn’t ever an issue for breakfast or dinner, but lunch at the office is filled with social media browsing. Instead, I got my coworkers on board to keep their phones away for lunch.

Feb. 8: Do a yoga for beginners workout to give your muscles TLC.

I needed this. I have been going hard on the leg and cardio workouts, so some yoga was exactly what I needed this day. I only did a 15-minute, but it’s better than nothing, right?!

Feb. 9: Make two of your three meals meatless. Need inspiration? Check Pinterest!

I typically don’t have an issue with this because I love to eat a lot of vegetables, fruit and salads to begin with. I had a huge salad for lunch and a veggie pasta for dinner.

Feb. 10: Meditate for 5 minutes and focus on your breath.

I was able to do in this in the office. I was feeling overwhelmed and took the opportunity to calm myself with breathing and relaxing for 10 minutes. Breathing works wonders for stress, friends.

Feb. 11: Take your workout outdoors even if it’s for 20 minutes!

We were happy to see a little warm weather this day, so I took a walk outside for 15 minutes. It’s still winter here in PA, so we didn’t want to go overboard with the outdoors.

Feb. 12: Go vegan for a day!

What was I thinking with this challenge? Not having eggs, cheese or any other animal products was challenging, but achievable. I ate lentil soup, salad, fruit salad, and rice with veggies throughout the day.

How did you do with these challenges? Make sure to share your wins and losses from this week! Don’t be shy, it’s okay if you had a slip-up or two!

Feb. 19: Unsubscribe from email marketing you’re not interested in keeping up with.

How have you been loving the challenges so far? What challenges were the easiest/most difficult for week two? What challenges for the third week are you most concerned about? Make sure to share in the comments below!

Remember in 2016 when I said I really wanted to collaborate with other bloggers on posts? After months of not reaching this goal, I opened up about how my anxiety was getting in the way of my desire to work and collaborate with bloggers.

At the end of 2016, I decided that I wanted to overcome this side of my anxiety. I wanted to say yes to more opportunities and take more risks on my blog. It was shortly after that Erin from, “A Welder’s Wife” reached out over Twitter to talk about a collaborative challenge for February.

Y’all, I was so excited. I said yes without overthinking things; and I kept reminding myself that it was going to be an amazing opportunity. So, we came up with 30 different challenges categorized in a four different themes set out for each week. This will be unique compared to the decluttering posts and challenges you may have participated in on the blog. These challenges will help you achieve mental balance and clarity in the new year. Below are a list of the challenges beginning today.

This challenge is perfect for you if you are:

1| Looking to cleanse your mind.

2| Focus on calmness and self care.

3| Enjoy the simple moments in life.

4| Explore new mental-based challenges every day.

Every Monday throughout the month, Erin and I will be posting and discussing the challenges and achievements from the previous week; and talking about the new set of challenges for that current week. Needless to say, I’m excited to see where this month of challenges will take me! Make sure to follow along as I share my posts and content on Instagram (@kiaracatanzaro) and Twitter (@BlissBrunette). You can also check out Erin’s Instagram and Twitter.

So, if you’re interested in trying to create a little extra bliss for the month of February, I hope you’ll take on these challenges; and join Erin and me as we go through this journey ourselves. Be sure to stop in next Monday to see how we did with our first week of challenges!

The first week of challenges: Self Care

Jan. 30: Set two goals you would like to achieve during this challenge

Jan. 31: Treat your face to a special pampering facial

Feb. 1: Go for a walk

Feb. 2: Journal for 15 minutes

Feb. 3: Go to bed 30 minutes earlier than normal

Feb. 4: Make a Gratitude list of everything you are grateful for in your life

Feb. 5: Take a long bubble bath

I hope you all find that this month is challenging yet motivating to focus on self care, cleansing your mind, and bliss. Have you ever participated in a 20-day mental cleanse before? Make sure to share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below!

About the Blogger

I believe it's important to find your bliss in life. You should do what makes your soul happy. I created this blog to bring a little bliss to your life with posts on beauty, fashion and life. Feel free to email me: theblissfullybrunetteblog@gmail.com